Stuart McGurk is GQ's Associate Editor and the 2017 PPA Magazine Writer of the Year. Follow him on Twitter @stuartmcgurk

Wednesday 2 November 2016

Most actors, when they're plucked from obscurity to be a global star - when they, say, take one of the lead roles in the comeback of a much-loved space adventure, one that went on to gross over $2 billion worldwide and reduce grown men to tears at the sight of a Wookiee in a ship that can do the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs - they don't often, how can we put this, necessarily go on to great things. Sequels? For sure. Action toys? You bet. But a career? Just ask Mark Hamill.

Yet for the 24-year-old, Peckham-born John Boyega, who played Finn in a certain film called The Force Awakens, it's a little different.

Greg Williams

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For one, unlike his co-star Daisy Ridley, he wasn't coming from a standing start, having cut his teeth in indie hits such as Brit sci-fi Attack The Block and the prestige Nigerian Civil War drama Half Of A Yellow Sun (in which he played Chiwetel Ejiofor's houseboy).

And for another, he didn't waste any time chalking up other projects to show he's no one-lightsaber-pony, from The Circle, the adaptation of the Dave Eggers' Silicon Valley satire, alongside Tom Hanks and Emma Watson, to starring in Kathryn "Zero Dark Thirty" Bigelow's forthcoming film based on the 1967 Detroit race riots, to landing the lead in the fighting-robot extravaganza sequel Pacific Rim: Maelstrom, taking over from Idris Elba by playing his son. He's even found time to voice a rabbit in the remake of Watership Down (he plays Bigwig).

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Greg Williams

Oh, and yes, there's also the small matter of Star Wars: Episode VIII, which he shot this summer and which is set for release at the end of next year. Who else could even come close for GQ's Vertu Breakthrough Actor Of The Year?

"It's a different take, darker, bigger," is what Boyega will say of the latest instalment, while adding simply of Finn's rumoured romance with Ridley's Rey, "It's not going to go the way you think it's going to go." Boyega, of all people, should know about that.